Saturday Nights
by TheDailyKnight
Summary: Merthur, AU, Chronology blown... again. Merlin lets off steam about how he feels towards Saturday nights. Just a random short in which, naturally, all characters belong to the relevant parties and I am just playing with them.


**Saturday Nights  
**

Merlin groaned as he opened his eyes and stared up at the light that flooded into his bedroom. Was it really that time already? How long had he been asleep? Not long enough, that was for sure.

He heaved himself out of bed and stared around his room. That in itself was unusual. Usually he would be stepping out of the Prince's bed these days, trying his hardest not to wake his lover. But not today. Arthur had gone out hunting the previous night and, for a change, had not insisted that Merlin accompany him. So, Merlin had found himself with a free evening and had chosen to spend it catching up with Gwen and Gaius in the local tavern.

It had been nice to see them and spend some quality time with them for a change. In between Arthur's many demands, his work for Gaius and Arthur's... urges... he never seemed to get to spend quality time with anybody else any more.

He washed, dressed and left the room to have breakfast with Gaius.

Breakfast was already on the table as he sat down opposite the Physician and smiled, tucking in heartily. They chatted between themselves, but somehow, Merlin thought, something just didn't feel right. It never did on Saturdays these days. Slowly but surely, the all-too-familiar headache started to creep up on him until Gaius was prompted to say, "Is there anything the matter, Merlin?"

Merlin sighed, finished his breakfast and leaned back.

"It's Saturday... again," he said wearily, accepting a headache cure from Gaius.

"It's the weekend," replied Gaius, watching Merlin grimace as he swallowed the medicine. "Surely you should be looking forward to it?"

"You know, Gaius, usually I would, but these days I'm coming to dread it."

"But, why?"

Gaius was genuinely at a loss as Merlin thought.

"Have you ever noticed something strange about Saturdays around here?"

"They're a chance for me to relax, usually. I don't seem to have any other patients except the occasional knight and the Royals. Why?"

"Haven't you ever noticed that Morgana doesn't exactly take a normal Saturday evening's entertainment? You know, go to the tavern, chill down in front of a roaring fire with a tankard of mead or hit the town with the girls?"

"Well, she is a High Priestess of the Old Religion," replied Gaius. "She's very busy."

"That's what I'm saying!" exclaimed Merlin. "To her, Saturday night is killing night. I hate to think what her diary looks like. If anybody ever tried to date her, can you imagine the response? 'No, sorry, I can't come out tonight, I'm trying to kill my brother tonight, sorry. Next weekend you say? Hold on... no, still trying to kill him, I'm afraid.'"

Merlin made a show of flicking through the pages of an invisible diary.

"No, I'm afraid I'll be trying to kill him all year. Oh, hold on, there might be a Saturday in January... Oh, no, sorry, my mistake! What a silly witch I am! I'm at the hairdressers getting the latest in evil hairstyles that day... What do you mean, am I also going to be killing Arthur that day? Of course not! Don't be silly! It would mess up my new look! That weekend, I will do it on Sunday instead."

Gaius struggled to keep a straight face as Merlin stood up and twirled around in an imaginary dress.

Putting on a passable impression of Morgana's voice, he added, "And _where_ am I meant to find time to go and update my wardrobe? Do you know how difficult it is to plot to kill my brother _and_ stay looking so good? My outfits don't iron themselves, you know!"

"Honestly, Gaius, I don't know how she manages to stay looking so _neat_! Look at me. Saturday night for me is a choice between brown, red and blue or brown, blue and red! Even then most of my clothes end up brown anyway after Arthur's dragged me out on some mission or other, rolled me through the dirt, doubted me and eventually got around to rescuing somebody after having made some mistake that I then have to go and correct! He does it every bloody week! Honestly, sometimes I think we're just in one big show for somebody's amusement!"

"If you wrote a play out of it, nobody would believe you, you know," replied Gaius. "Anyway, Arthur's not all bad. You're dating him, after all."

"Oh, he's alright," said Merlin, sitting back down again. "But he's so... _challenging_. Do you know, I had to invent a spell last week to get stains out of bed sheets? Do you know how hard I have been working to try and house train him? Use a bloody rag, for heaven's sake, like everybody else! But no, he insists on using the bed sheets to mop up after himself. And don't get me started on his habits in the garderobe! I've been trying to get him to stop whistling tunes in there for months!"

"What's so bad about that?" asked Gaius.

"Have you _ever_ tried listening to a tune that's randomly interspersed by unplanned, drawn-out notes from the nether regions?"

"No, I can't say that I have," replied Gaius, grinning.

"Well _I_ have memorised most of the music played at court, and I am finding it very hard to listen to it at ceremonial occasions these days _without_ placing random farts into it along the way in my head! It makes it very hard to keep a straight face at serious occasions!"

"I don't think that I'll manage it in future either," managed Gaius after he'd stopped laughing.

"And, oh, that _habit_ he has of making me wear _that_ outfit. You know the one? The red one with the feather in the cap? He liked me so much in it that I have to wear it at least one evening a week now. He had it specially re-tailored for me. But, get this, he makes me wear it to bed... Gaius, stop sniggering, that isn't funny!"

"I'm sorry," managed Gaius, wiping his eyes dry. "It's just... you put up with all of this?"

"I love him, of course I do," replied Merlin. "But some of his stuff is just so... irritating! Between Morgana and him, I get no time to myself! Morgana's diary practically dictates mine and Arthur's habits ensure I have no time to relax in the meantime. Honestly, one day I might just lock them in a room together and let the squabble it out!"

"Morgana's very powerful," said Gaius. "She'd kill him if you did that."

"Have you ever smelled the garderobe after Arthur's tuneful exploits?" asked Merlin. "All I would need to do is get him humming a tune in the room and we would have her unconscious here at the castle under lock and key in no time at all."

"Well, at least you get out on Saturday nights," pointed out Gaius. "You're not stuck indoors doing nothing."

"Yes, but when you're out with the knights and they're asleep it can be like a band playing. I've even named the tune. It's called "The Garderobe Chorus". The tune changes every night, but the result is still the same."

"You standing watch?"

"No... Me casting a light show on them so that I can be distracted from the whiffs," replied Merlin. "I have found that if I make each one light up a different colour, it can be mesmerising... and useful. I know where it has gone so I don't accidentally walk into it and breathe in. I swear that it's a knight thing though. Sir Percival's horse nearly bolted last weekend to try to get away from the smell after he cracked one in the saddle. It only failed because it was still tied to a tree. I don't know what shocked it more: the noise, the smell or the fact that it couldn't uproot the tree it was tethered to. It was in a bad mood for hours afterwards."

"But do you know what?" grumbled Merlin.

"What?"

"As if Morgana's not bad enough, every other week there seems to be some ghost, item or creature sent to plague us. That always seems to be on Saturdays too. And when it's not ghosts, items or creatures, it's Arthur sprouting donkey ears or Uther trying to marry a troll. On the whole, I'm not that keen on the day to tell you the truth. I would rather curl up in bed and wait for Sunday."

"Why don't you?"

"Do you ever think I could get away with it?" asked Merlin. "Arthur has a shout that carries half way across the castle and it has usually got my name on it. I don't think that there's anywhere in the castle I could go where it would not find me eventually."

"Merlin!"

Merlin sighed as he heard Arthur's dulcet tones echoing down the hallway outside.

"You see?" he said pointedly as Arthur strode in, red in the face.

"Hello, Sire," he replied with a smile. "Who's been kidnapped?"

"What? Gwen. How did you know?"

"It's Saturday," sighed Merlin. "Haven't you ever noticed that this kind of thing always happens on a Saturday?"

He stared at Arthur's blank expression.

"I don't suppose that you have," he sighed, standing up. "I guess that Morgana's involved and that we need to ride like the blazes to some inconveniently-placed tower in the back end of nowhere to save her?"

"Correct."

"And nobody has ever found out how Morgana's buying these towers, who from and how she's paying for them, and then maybe riding out to force the estate agency to stop selling them to her?"

"I tried," replied Arthur. "But they said no."

"Why?"

"Apparently she's their best customer."

"Why am I not surprised? Who is the business?"

"E. Villa's Castles."

"And you never thought to put them out of business?"

"I can't."

"Why?"

"Father had this castle constructed by them. They did a good job. I can't go putting people like that out of business."

Merlin sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. "It's definitely Saturday," he mumbled, shaking his head. "I should put these ideas to you on Wednesdays. Wednesdays see you being a lot more rational."

"No, you couldn't," replied Arthur. "Wednesday is banquet day. I usually doze off afterwards, remember?"

"Thursday?" asked Merlin hopefully.

"Training with the knights," replied Arthur, apologetically.

"Fri- no, that won't work," mused Merlin. "You get your hair done on Fridays. Sunday is too late, Monday you usually have a hangover, Tuesdays... Tuesdays might work."

"Fine, tell me all the stuff that I don't want to hear now on Tuesday," replied Arthur with a smile. "You can tell me in front of the fire, right after we've-"

"NOT IN FRONT OF GAIUS!"

"-Eat dinner together," finished Arthur, somewhat lamely.

"Good, I shall hold you to that," replied Merlin tetchily.

"Now, if our diaries have matched up and if you're not too busy, shall we go and save Gwen?" asked Arthur.

"Did you tell her that if she got kidnapped again you would charge her to come out and save her?"

"Yes."

"And?"

"She tried to give me the money in advance. I don't think she worked out that we were only joking."

"We were? Oh, of course we were! Silly me! Heaven forbid that she would be more careful. Shall we go then?"

Merlin pushed past Arthur, who frowned at Gaius.

"He's not a Saturday night person," said Gaius in response to the Prince's unspoken question.

"Are you coming to meet our old friend, Certain Death, or not?" came Merlin's voice from the end of the corridor. "You know he gets tetchy if he's kept waiting."

Arthur rolled his eyes and sighed. So, Merlin was in _that_ mood. This was not going to make his life any easier.

"Heaven, help me," he mumbled as he turned and hurried out to meet his manservant.

Gaius watched him go and sighed to himself. Absent-mindedly, he started to rake the shelves of his room, pulling down jars of ingredients. After all, there was bound to be somebody unconscious by early evening that he would have to treat.

5


End file.
